Cat M
Netflix’s Death Note (2017) – A Complete Butchery of a Masterpiece
When you take one of the most genius psychological anime thrillers of all time and hand it to Hollywood, you’d expect at least a decent attempt at adaptation. What Netflix gave us in 2017 instead was not just a bad movie, but a total betrayal of everything that made Death Note brilliant.
This isn’t an adaptation. It’s a character assassination, a narrative collapse, and a visual insult. If the anime was a finely tuned chess match of morality and genius, the movie is a high school melodrama mixed with Final Destination gore.
The Anime: A Reminder of Genius
The Death Note anime is an intellectual and stylistic masterpiece:
• A cat-and-mouse battle of wits between Light Yagami and L, filled with tension, misdirection, and psychological warfare.
• Complex characters: Light as the brilliant, magnetic golden boy corrupted by power; L as the eccentric, calm detective who unravels him; Misa as the obsessive devotee who complicates everything.
• Themes of justice, morality, and corruption that force the audience to wrestle with questions of power.
• A methodical structure spread across 37 episodes that builds suspense and delivers twists organically.
• Visuals, music, and atmosphere that made every second electric.
In short: the anime is intelligent, stylish, morally provocative, and unforgettable.
The Movie: A Catastrophic Butchery
Story – Compressed to Death
Netflix tried to cram the depth of the anime into under two hours. The result? A sloppy, incoherent mess. Instead of methodical tension, we got rushed plotlines, random deaths, and a focus on cheap gore over psychological suspense. The rules of the Death Note, which should build mystery, were dumbed down or ignored entirely.
Even worse, the cat-and-mouse game that defined the anime was almost entirely stripped away. There was no suspense, no intellectual duel. Just shallow drama with no real payoff.
Characters – Unrecognizable and Insulting
• Light Yagami vs. Light Turner
In the anime, Light Yagami is handsome, charismatic, and terrifyingly brilliant. He’s the golden boy women adore and men respect, a genius with beauty and charisma that make his transformation into a self-styled god believable.
In the movie, Light Turner is a whiny, awkward, bullied teenager. Instead of a magnetic genius, he’s a pathetic kid who gets beat up in school and cries his way through decisions. He’s not attractive, not confident, not inspiring. The casting was disastrous, the actor had none of Light’s commanding presence. Watching him stumble around made it impossible to believe anyone would follow him, let alone worship him as a god. This isn’t just bad characterization. It’s character assassination.
• L
Anime L is eccentric but calm, brilliant, and emotionally restrained, the perfect foil to Light’s arrogance. Movie L? Emotional, frantic, prone to irrational outbursts, even pulling a gun in desperation. The calculating genius was replaced by a jittery caricature.
• Misa vs. Mia
In the anime, Misa is obsessive, vulnerable, and manipulative, a fascinatingly tragic character. In the movie, Mia is a bland “bad girl sidekick” whose only purpose is to force a love story no one wanted. Stripped of complexity, she was reduced to a cliché.
• Ryuk
Willem Dafoe’s voice was the one saving grace. But even Ryuk was underutilized, reduced to a cameo role in what should have been a constant, menacing presence. He’s supposed to be a Shinigami who doesn’t care or get involved. In the movie for some reason, he hates Light and keeps telling him he’s going to find the book a new home when in the anime he made it known that Light is the new owner and he was just over watching everything.
Tone and Aesthetics - Wrong on Every Level
The anime’s atmosphere is sleek, eerie, and cerebral. The movie? A mash-up of teen angst, horror clichés, and gory spectacle. The deaths felt more like Final Destination than Death Note. Critics even joked it had “multiple genre disorder” horror, teen romance, supernatural thriller, none of which fit together.
Relocating the story to Seattle and whitewashing the cast stripped away cultural context and made everything feel hollow. Instead of tension, we got neon lights and melodrama.
fatally overcrowded and never quite reckoning with how twisted its concept is.
Light a whining teen who lacked any of the charisma or genius of his anime counterpart.
oversimplifying the rules, abandoning moral ambiguity, and failing to create tension.
a vile piece of trash, a pathetic insult to the anime, and Light isn’t a genius god, he’s a bullied loser.
Even casual viewers unfamiliar with the anime said the movie felt messy, incoherent, and emotionally hollow.
Final Verdict
The Netflix Death Note movie is not just a bad adaptation it’s a crime against storytelling.
• It destroyed Light, turning an iconic genius villain into a pathetic nobody.
• It stripped away the anime’s cat-and-mouse brilliance and replaced it with gore and teen drama.
• It reduced complex characters into clichés and caricatures.
• It whitewashed the cast, gutted the themes, and flattened the moral questions that defined the original.
The anime remains a masterpiece of psychological tension. The movie is a textbook example of how Hollywood can take a brilliant Japanese story and butcher it beyond recognition.
If the anime is a razor-sharp chess match of intellect and morality, the movie is a clumsy food fight. Watch the anime. Pretend the movie never existed.
And let’s be clear: they didn’t even need to change the name of the main character. They could’ve easily cast an Asian actor or at least a half-Asian actor who was truly attractive, charismatic, and kept the Japanese last name. That alone would’ve honored the source material far more than this insulting mess.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
09/30/25
Full Review
Rachel O
Trash. Trash. Trash.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
09/10/25
Full Review
Reginald W
Having watched the anime, I can state with confidence that it bears little resemblance to the source material. Light has been reduced to a rather insecure adolescent, Misa has been cast in an oddly domineering role, and, regrettably, Willem Dafoe’s talents were thoroughly underutilised.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
09/04/25
Full Review
James H
Why dose ryuk look like he just had a divorce and a depression in this movie also the plot just sucks as a person who watched the anime this sucks literally yagimi is not a genius like in the show he is stupid
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
08/13/25
Full Review
NRG T
If I could give this vile piece of trash "FILM" a 0 I would. Death Note is one of my favourite Anime and to see such an amazing series be ruined this bad it's heartbreaking. Adam Wingard should probably stop making "Films".
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
08/08/25
Full Review
HotFrog W
The simpsons did better
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
08/08/25
Full Review
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